Page 125 of The Lovers

The boutique manager waves from the shadowed corner of the shop where she adjusts a display of dried lavender bundles and moonstone charms. Her long, flowing skirt brushes against the polished wood floor as she approaches. The silver pendant at her neck glints like an open eye. Her salt-and-pepper hair is twisted into a perfect coil on the top of her head, and her lips are painted the same shade of deep wine-red as the last time I saw her. From beneath thick, black lashes, her dark gaze locks onto mine, seeing, knowing.

But this time, the weight of her focus doesn’t make me nervous. It doesn’t make me want to turn away. This time, it feels like recognition. Like understanding whispered across realms.

“I’m here to try on my wedding dress,” I say, standing a little taller.

The manager hums, and her fingers drift through the air in an absent-minded pattern—one I half expect to shimmer with magick.

“Ah,” she murmurs, nails trailing along the silverpendant at her throat, clicking against the metal. “And to think, last time we met, you stood at a crossroads.” She smiles. “I am happy to see the path you chose.”

It feels like she knows every road I’ve walked. Every turn I took. Like she knew, even then, that I would find my way back here. That I would find my way to him.

Alderic lifts a brow. “Are the beginnings of all wedding gown fittings this dramatic?”

Elsie giggles, swatting at his arm. “Only thereally goodones.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, looking him up and down. “Are you calling my wedding gown fitting dramatic?”

He shrugs, completely unrepentant. “At any moment, doves might spontaneously appear.”

I shake my head. “You’re the one who asked to come along.”

“Oh, I’d sit through a hundred fittings if it meant I got to watch you undress and call me your husband.”

My cheeks flush. “You like being called that?”

He arches a single brow. “Say it again and find out.”

I roll my eyes, but it’s useless. I’m already leaning into him, into the warmth of his hands as his fingers brush my skin. He’s looking at me like I’m some kind of miracle, like I hung the stars just to lead him home.

“I know that look,” I murmur, my voice catching on the swell of emotion in my throat.

His thumb traces lazy circles along my wrist. “Just thinking about fate,” he says. “And how if I’d known it would end like this—that you were waiting for me on the other side of everything—I would have run faster. I would have torn the world apart to get here sooner.”

“You’re here now,” I whisper. “You don’t have to runanymore.”

His lips slant over mine, warm, certain, tasting of strawberries. And in that kiss, I feel it: the shift of something cosmic, the quiet click of destiny falling into place. Not a surrender, but a return.

Not to the version of me who played it safe, or the woman who made herself smaller to survive.

But to the one who chose herself.

Finally—finally—I’m home.

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